


Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

by CloudDreamer



Series: Demon Eyes [5]
Category: Dr. Carmilla (Musician), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Backstory, Blood and Gore, F/F, Lesbians..., Not Canon Non-Compliant, OH LORELIIIIIIIII, Red Stringing, The Siren Saga, Vampires, Who is she where did she come from where did she go OH LORELIIII, not Canon Compliant either, painful healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25918549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer
Summary: It was the two of them against the world. But then the two of them against each other, and that seemed so much harder than fighting all the worlds combined.
Relationships: Dr Carmilla/Loreli (Dr. Carmilla)
Series: Demon Eyes [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698556
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Stowaways' Shenanigans





	Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Her name is like ash on Carmilla’s tongue, and she’s a sharp taste. Everything about her is a want, as messy as desire and hot as rage. She used to be all the warmest of colors, the ones Carmilla couldn’t muster for herself, but now Loreli’s just sanguine. 

She traces the outline of a heart in her own blood, a real heart, not some cartoon symbol, and the metal she scratches her wet fingers against isn’t as cold as her skin. Isn’t as cold as the organ that’s long since stilled in her chest. 

Her sharp white ribs guard it, dull and colorless as it is without her life to pump it. Without the hands in hers, pulling her forward, Carmilla is static. Languid motions give way to complete collapse. She coughs up something, and she’s not sure if it’s acid or chunks of organs. They’ll be back— she wants to cry out — they’ll be back. 

If she was to take a hold of something, her fist would break it to pieces. A hand in hers? She has to laugh, and laugh she does, with a sickening crunch inside her chest. The bones don’t seem to be fitting together right, and she tries to push them back into place and— that just makes it worse, doesn’t it? These days, anyone who held theirs out to hers would find their limb crumpled, shredded, crushed. 

There’s no such thing as softness, no comfort for a creature like Carmilla. A beast, a monster, that’s what they screamed at her— like they knew. Like they knew anything about her.

The rain falls like ink from a painted sky. Drop by drop. She can’t escape the heat inside her, and yet, the water seems to freeze against her skin. She curls up as best as she can, pulling the scraps of fabric close around her out of habit more than anything, and her tears are as dark as the rain. As dark as the deepest shades of blood, the blood— Loreli’s blood, Carmilla’s blood, drawn with tooth and claw and mixing together — that’s still beneath her nails. Carmilla can’t bring herself to pick at the dried flakes, and besides, this water will wash it away.

It’s so cold. Her breath— she keeps forgetting about it, somehow, and it keeps not coming for minutes at a time— is a white mist in front of her. Blurry. Everything is so blurry, but it refuses to go black, even for a moment. She can’t seem to place her hands, can’t keep the distance straight in her mind. If she were to reach up to her face, she’d feel the lines where her eye once was. Torn flesh, ripped right open, right out. She can’t see right, not without it, not with the darkness descending, not with this cold mist. 

She coughs again, trying to feel something, anything outside of this damn hole where her heart should be: the silence where a beat once was and the emptiness in the space around her. 

Carmilla hadn’t fallen in love. She’d taken step after careful step, all according to the map, and even as the map pulled her further away from the beaten path, she didn’t think to question it. When it was Loreli holding the compass, she didn’t think to question anything. She didn’t need to. She was half of a pair, their names inseparable, and by the time she saw the cliff coming up, thought to look back, the path she’d followed was already gone. Swallowed by the wild growth. No where to go but forward, and the compass is spinning. 

Turn to true north to go home. But Loreli’s iron enough to pull the magnet off course. 

She is lost. Hopelessly. And her hands shake like lost children left above ground as the Sirens sing. They want to reach for reassurance, but safety is gone. Blown to pieces, obliterated, just another casualty of a damned war on a damned world, and she’ll be next. She’ll be next if she can’t drag herself to her feet— she can hear them now. 

The buzz is at the wrong frequency, too high pitched, but that might be Carmilla’s head that’s wrong. Screwed on at such a bad angle. She tilts it, looking to the sky and letting cold soak into her. Maybe she’ll catch her death, like this, collapsed into the rotten banks. She coughs again, a fit. She’s throwing a fit, and —She can hear them now. Too loud. Not her screams, those are all inside; her head is a maelstrom of no’s, and please’s, and don’t leave me. If Carmilla tried to stand and run, she knows she’d collapse right down again. This is the Sirens.

They’re coming for her now.

What comes next, she prays it’ll be quick. But she knows it won’t, knows the acrid taste of poison that’ll leave her spinning, dizzy, wheezing for hours as her pathetic lungs, always just about about to collapse, work desperately, to push out the toxins. And despite herself, she cries for the beast that left her in this sorry state, viscera all eschew. 

She cries for love, for her love, but the words die as wet gurgles. She can’t even crawl. Her sharp teeth don’t chatter, not as that liquid that doesn’t taste right fills her mouth. She knows what’s coming, knows the pain, and worse, she’s dead certain— that makes her try to laugh again, shit— it won’t be enough. She’ll knit back together, pain the only remainder of this night’s brutality, and once again, she’ll be following the only path left to her.

To Loreli. To home.


End file.
